Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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  • Online shopping and “last mile” real estate

    The Globe and Mail recently published an excellent article on “how e-commerce is driving a real estate revolution.” This is a topic that I’m very interested in: how online manifests itself offline.

    Not surprisingly, the article talks a lot about Amazon, including their 4th warehouse in the Greater Toronto Area, which is an 850,000 square foot facility in Brampton equipped with 350-pound robots (8050 Heritage Road).

    The first thing I did after reading the article was figure out the location of all of Amazon’s fulfillment centers in the GTA. Amazon doesn’t seem to publish this. But according to TaxJar, they are here (I mapped out the addresses):

    There are two in Brampton at the precise location where Hwy 407 (toll route) and Hwy 401 meet. The other three are distributed along Hwy 401 in Milton and in Mississauga.

    Now let’s get back to that Globe and Mail article:

    – In 6 years, Amazon has leased over 2 million square feet of warehouse space in Canada.

    – Toronto is the third largest warehouse market in North America. It represents 43% of Canada’s total inventory.

    – Average net rents have increased 9.7% over the past year and vacancy rates have dropped to 2.7% (CBRE data). In Vancouver, those same numbers are 5.1% and 3%, respectively.

    – Online shopping is thought to account for about 6.5% of all retail sales in Canada. But in Toronto, 23% of all industrial space is already e-commerce-related (CBRE data, again).

    – CBRE believes that every $1 billion in new online sales per year requires an additional 1.25 million square feet of warehouse space. 

    – Based on online sales projections, Canada needs another 27.5 million square feet of industrial space over the next 5 years. We don’t have that much space in the pipeline.

    – Clear heights are increasing for stacking purposes. Amazon’s new Brampton facility is 45 feet tall / 4 floors. 10 years ago new warehouses were 26 feet tall.

    – Average sale price of warehouses in the GTA has gone from $119.35 psf to $142.19 psf over the last year.

    Perhaps the most interesting takeaway from the article is the discussion around “last mile” distribution hubs. These are fulfillment centers located closer to the city, which are used to offer shorter delivery times: 

    “…instead of having inventory stored for days or months, these fulfilment centres will turn over their inventory in one day, sometimes twice a day.”

    This is something that I addressed in my recent presentation about the “mall of the future” at B+H’s retail design charrette. Where do these physical distribution centers want to be as online sales continue to grow and delivery times continue to compress? Where’s the future growth?

    According to this article, it’s going to be in “last mile” fulfillment real estate – relatively smaller spaces that are located very close or directly in the city center.

    Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

  • The next generation of wireless architecture will perform a lot like our cities

    I just finished watching this brief talk by Daniela Perdomo, who is CEO of the mesh networking startup goTenna. It was given at the recent Cities of Tomorrow conference in New York.

    The company sells a product called goTenna Mesh, which is a consumer device that pairs with your phone and allows you to create your own device-to-device (mesh) network for text and GPS communication.

    This network exists independently of centralized cell towers and so part of the value proposition is that during times of disaster – when cell service often goes down – this device allows you to maintain communication.

    I can’t say this is something I feel compelled to invest in right now, but I’m intrigued by something that Daniela mentioned in her presentation. 

    She said that traditional cell tower service degrades as more people use it. That’s why it often becomes “oversaturated” during times of crisis or when you’re at a packed event, such as a concert.

    But unlike traditional cell service, decentralized mesh networks by definition get stronger as more people participate. And that’s because the mesh gets bigger and denser. 

    So her argument was that mesh networks are actually a lot like cities. More people and more nodes make the entire ecosystem stronger and more resilient. I like that because we know that many things, such as productivity, do in fact increase as cities get bigger.

    While I may not be pulling out my wallet right now for this device, it strikes me that this wireless architecture – which mimics some of the natural strengths of our cities – is something we will certainly see more of in the future.

    Veniam is an another example of a company focused on mesh networks, but in this case it’s through vehicles. They are building “the internet of moving things.”

    Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Unsplash

  • Second Nature

    There is a deep connection between skateboarding and cities. Skateboarders are constantly surveying the built environment and looking for new and creative ways to engage with it. I think it’s a beautiful way to experience cities. (Sadly, we often respond by making it illegal.)

    The below video is a perfect example of this connection. It’s a 20 minute documentary about pro skater Janne Saario (of Finland) who eventually went on to become a successful landscape architect. Here is his firm. And if you can’t see the embedded video below, click here.

    [vimeo 46685196 w=640 h=360]

  • Gigantic shopping machines

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    This morning I gave a presentation and participated in a design charrette that was organized by B+H Advance Strategy about the “mall of the future.” (See photo above.) It’s a 2-day event and I was only able to stick around for a few hours in the morning, but I think it’s great that B+H Architects takes the time to research and get a deeper level of understanding in the areas in which they work. Great design demands that.

    The way the charrette was structured was around a handful of future scenarios. The idea being that it’s impossible to accurately predict the future, but it is possible to play out different possible futures to see what you get. I’m looking forward to seeing what the teams ultimately come up with at the end. I would also be really curious to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

    But before we decide on what malls are going to become in the future, it’s perhaps useful to think about how they got their start. The man largely credited with inventing the fully enclosed mall typology is a man by the name of Victor Gruen. He was a Vienna-born architect who moved to the US in 1938. 

    In the words of Malcolm Gladwell:

    “Fifty years ago, Victor Gruen designed a fully enclosed, introverted, multitiered, double-anchor-tenant shopping complex with a garden court under a skylight—and today virtually every regional shopping center in America is a fully enclosed, introverted, multitiered, double-anchor-tenant complex with a garden court under a skylight. Victor Gruen didn’t design a building; he designed an archetype.”

    The most interesting thing about this story though is that Gruen’s initial hope was that the mall would urbanize America’s suburbs. The garden court was supposed to be a kind of town square. And his broader vision included a mix of higher density uses surrounding the perimeter. But in reality the opposite happened: The mall helped to further suburbanize America.

    However, as our malls begin to show their age (or die) and as we relearn to appreciate walkable urban environments, mall landlords are increasingly thinking mixed-use and higher density. And ironically, many of the plans probably don’t look all that dissimilar to Gruen’s original ideas. So maybe one possible future is simply the one that Gruen wanted to create all along.

    Image: Kinetic Commerce

  • From self-storage to urban logistics

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    I have long told myself that if I ever needed to rent self-storage space, it would mean that I own too much stuff and that I need to get rid of some of my shit. But I recognize that there are many reasons why someone might need extra storage and I recognize that the storage market in the United States alone is something to the tune of $30 billion a year.

    Here is an interesting case study about the storage company MakeSpace, which to-date has raised almost $60 million in equity funding. Their model is likely one that you’ve heard of or used before. Instead of you yourself going to the “self-storage” facility, they do the pickup and delivery. So they call themselves a logistics business, like Amazon, except that it works in reverse. Instead of you receiving deliveries, they take your stuff from your home back out to their warehouses.

    Because of the route management software that they’ve been building over the last 4.5 years and because there’s enough density in the areas that they service, their pick-up and drop-off routes are apparently profitable. You no doubt need a certain amount of scale for that to happen, but they seem to have it. By the end of this year, they expect their reoccurring revenues to be in the $10′s of millions. That’s coming from the volumes of green boxes you see at the top of this post.

    What’s particularly relevant for this audience are the built form and real estate implications. Because their customers aren’t physically visiting their facilities, they’ve been able to locate all of their distribution centers on the outskirts of the cities in which they operate. And because of this, their physical real estate costs are said to be less than 50% of traditional self-storage firms and they believe this number will trend to around 20% as volumes continue to grow.

    All of this has me thinking about some of the other implications of the on-demand economy on cities and on real estate.

    Image via Both Sides of the Table

  • The past and the future on Armstrong Avenue

    I spent this evening driving around Toronto with an architect friend of mine looking for laneway houses. (Late summer sunsets have a wonderful way of extending the day.)

    I think most people would be surprised by how many of them are hidden away behind our streets. I think of laneways as a forgotten third layer behind our major avenues and smaller streets.

    One of my favorite laneway houses, pictured above, is Armstrong Avenue by Taylor_Smyth Architects. It’s a bit unusual in that it’s exceptionally large for a laneway house (2,200 square feet). But that’s because the building was originally built as a dairy (1912).

    What’s interesting about the house is that from the outside it looks rather nondescript. Okay, it looks raw and rundown. Here is a closer photo:

    But then inside, it looks like this. Modern. Clean. Polished. And light-filled.

    I’m not suggesting that this should or could become a repeatable model for laneway housing in Toronto. Again, it’s a unique circumstance. But I think contrast is an extraordinary poetic device. And in this case, it speaks to both the past and the future of this city.

  • How permissive zoning created Toronto’s King-Spadina district

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    Over the weekend, Marcus Gee of the Globe and Mail published a terrific article about Toronto’s King-Spadina district and how “condos conquered a rundown district of the city.” (This post will argue that condos were not the catalyst, but an outcome of other changes.)

    The image at the top of this post (City of Toronto Archives) is the intersection of King Street and Spadina Avenue around the early 1900s. And here is roughly that same view from May 2016 (Google Streetview):

    image

    From this perspective, it may look like not much has changed. The buildings at the two corners are still there, although their uses have changed. The streetcars are still running, although we now have slightly newer machines. And there are overhead lines providing a canopy across the intersection.

    But as Gee points out, the reality is that in recent years King-Spadina has arguably seen more change and development than any other precinct in the city:

    No fewer than 99 projects have been built, approved or pitched since 2004. That’s one quarter of the total for the entire city and more than the count for two vast suburban districts – Scarborough and Etobicoke – combined. King-Spadina is overtaking even high-rise hubs such as Yonge and Eglinton in midtown Toronto and the Bay and Yonge corridors downtown.

    Below is a diagram showing the built form of that change.

    image

    But as we talk about this massive change, I would argue that this didn’t happen by accident. 

    Gee starts his piece by saying that “cities have an endless ability to evolve, to rebound, to reinvent and regenerate themselves, sometimes in ways that would astonish generations past.” I would add one word: Successful cities have an endless ability to evolve.

    King-Spadina has indeed reinvented itself many times. Prior to its current iteration, it served as a manufacturing district and as the center of Toronto’s garment industry. But from the 1970s through to the early 1990s, the area fell into decline as its manufacturing base left.

    The game changing moment happened in 1996 when “The Kings” – which includes the areas around both King-Spadina and King-Parliament – were redesignated as “Regeneration Areas.” The overarching goal was to deregulate away from single-use industrial zoning and allow the area’s buildings, both old and new, to take on almost any use.

    Now all of a sudden it was possible to have light industrial, commercial, entertainment, retail, residential, and live/work uses all mixed together. And with the bones already in place, the market responded. 

    In my view, it is these earlier changes that laid the groundwork for what has become one of the most exciting neighborhoods in the country.

    However, today some are worried about whether or not this is too much of a good thing. And I am sure that many would like to blame developers for piling up in this neighborhood. Why continue to build here when there’s lots of land elsewhere?

    King-Spadina is a perfect example of what Richard Florida would call “winner-take-all urbanism.” There are powerful clustering forces at play both globally and locally in our cities. And so there are real economic reasons for why King-Spadina has seen more development than Etobicoke and Scarborough combined.

    Permissive land use policies and the right building stock may have kickstarted things, but now economies of agglomeration have taken over. Retailers, restaurants, clubs, tech companies and people, among many others, are now fighting for space in this area for the same reason that Toronto’s garment industry once felt the need to cluster here. There are tangible benefits to doing so.

    What people are effectively asking today is at what point do we start to see diseconomies of agglomeration. This is an important question and one that needs to be actively managed. 

    Without getting into any of the details, I believe that the King Street Pilot Study – which puts transit first along the King corridor – is one very appropriate answer to this question. It is a direct response to diseconomies of agglomeration, in this case traffic congestion.

    But there are important corollaries to this question that are also worth considering: How do we now create more King-Spadinas and how do we create more broad-based and inclusive urbanism in the face of these powerful clustering forces? These are questions that go well beyond King-Spadina, but there are lessons to be learned from the successes seen on the west side of downtown Toronto.

    Images via The Globe and Mail and Google Street View

  • Video: Brooklyn Navy Yard

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    Monocle recently published a short 4 minute video tour of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It covers a bit of the area’s history and the kind of businesses that are flocking to the area today.

    One of the reoccurring themes in the video is a feeling of stability. The local businesses feel secure in their space and some even believe that the area is somehow immune to gentrification.

    Monocle doesn’t allow embedded videos, so you’ll have to click here to watch.

  • How avocado toast became the poster child for Millennial self-indulgence

    I am a big fan of avocados, as I’m sure many of you are as well. But why the obsession these days? Consumption is very clearly up. Sure they’re healthy, but what else is driving their celebrity status?

    Here’s an excerpt from a recent New Yorker essay called, A Grand Unified Theory of Avocado Toast:

    Today, nine out of ten imported avocados in the U.S. are from Mexico.

    The change resulted from the North American Free Trade Agreement. Their effects on the consumer avocado market were profound: from the mid-nineties through 2014, the United States’ avocado consumption nearly quadrupled. Average consumption rose from less than two pounds per person per year to about seven. In the nineties, the United States was producing more than eighty per cent of the avocados that it ate. More recently, it has grown fewer than twenty per cent. The twenty-first-century explosion of avocado smoothies, avocado ice cream, avocado life, in other words, is not in your imagination. It reflects a foreign influx of the fruit, mostly made possible by NAFTA.

    If you also love avocados and you’re curious as to why avocado toast has become the poster child for Millennial self-indulgence, you may want to read the full article.

  • Crane capital of America

    When people like Richard Florida talk about today’s “superstar cities”, the usual suspects include London and New York for finance, the San Francisco Bay Area for tech, Milan for fashion and design, and so on.

    And you can certainly find the data to back up these claims. For instance, if you look at venture capital dollars invested, many of these same cities reappear near the top: San Francisco, San Jose, New York, etc.

    One city that doesn’t often appear on these sorts of lists, though, is Seattle. 

    However, clearly something special is taking place in the city. For the second year in a row, Seattle has been named the construction crane capital of America. No other American city comes close right now. (However, Toronto is still #1 in North America.)

    At the same time, if you think about all of the companies that have come out of Seattle over the years, you start to realize that maybe VC dollars invested isn’t enough to tell the entire entrepreneurial story.

    Venture capitalist Fred Wilson once said on his blog that if you look at dollars in and dollars out, Seattle outperforms – by a lot. And that’s very interesting to me. Is this simply the lasting legacy of Microsoft? Or are there other – transferable – lessons to be learned here?